Yearnotes 5

Where did 2025 go?

The year passed in a bit of a blur. In my last yearnotes I said I wanted to avoid burning out and keep my job in perspective. I think I did avoid burnout, just about, but work has still been stressful and all-consuming in a way that makes it hard to remember what else I’ve done with the time.

I’d hoped for…

more exercise, less work, more time for myself and with friends. Let’s see how that goes.

Well, I did more exercise. Although I don’t expect my broken foot will ever be as good as new, it’s healed enough not to interfere, so I’ve been able to keep up a roughly thrice-weekly hour of light cardio at the gym with only psychological difficulty. I mostly kept my weight and energy level under control, festive period notwithstanding, which is both an achievement and a relief.

Conversely I think I’ve worked longer and harder this year than in any previous year, which hasn’t left much time for myself or friends. I’m disappointed about that but I don’t know what I could’ve done differently without dropping even more balls than I did.

Thankfully my physical health has been fine. I didn’t have any significant illness aside from that unlucky bout of norovirus, my wrist pain seems to have basically sorted itself out, and I easily managed a full year without alcohol, which is probably good for my precious, precious organs. Obviously I’d like to be fitter and stronger but, given the constraints, I’ll be grateful if I can simply maintain a problem-free meat robot next year.

I’ve noticed my eyesight getting a bit worse. I’ve slightly increased the frequency with which I wear glasses at home to make it more relaxing to watch a film, read in bed or work on a laptop screen. I’m happy I can still see fine without them, but I’m finding it increasingly desirable to keep them available to give my eyes a break. I’m a little worried the astigmatism will continue to get worse over time — surely it will? — but hopeful it’ll remain within this zone of mild inconvenience for a while so I don’t have to become a full-time four-eyes quite yet.

I abandoned several video games. Off the top of my head: Batman: Arkham Asylum when I couldn’t enjoy the challenge of an early boss fight no matter how hard I tried, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage when the total absence of narrative momentum unmoored me and I drifted away, and Spider-Man when I’d punched a few thugs and swung between a few buildings and couldn’t see the point.

Instead I pottered away happily first at Ghost of Tsushima and then the ridiculously beautiful Ghost of Yōtei. I haven’t completed either yet but I found the latter in particular very engaging: beating Takezo was a satisfying challenge, the Hanbei training sequence was a delightful subversion of my expectations, and in general the writing, performances and visuals were all good enough to sweep me off to another time and place. I’ll finish it next year if I manage to find more headspace for that sort of thing.

I abandoned several TV shows too: my Twin Peaks rewatch (the middle of season two is always hard to get through, and this time it defeated me), Dexter: Original Sin & Resurrection which were both kind of watchable but not interesting enough to stick with, Foundation which has become so ridiculous that I think I’ve finally given up on it, and The Morning Show, Pachinko & Murderbot which all just sort of slid off my brain without any effect.

I did really enjoy season one of Shōgun and season two of Andor, and somehow I watched all of Neon Genesis Evangelion even though it became obvious early on that I shouldn’t.

In an unrivalled feat of metatextual genius, Vince Gilligan produced a drama about everyone in the world losing their individuality and judgement, then got everyone in the world to abandon individuality and judgement in their collective critical response to it.

I doubt I’ll ever solve the mystery of why so many people enjoyed Pluribus so much — an anonymous correspondent suggested American exceptionalism might explain it, which is in itself a more interesting idea than any presented in the show — but regrettably I watched it all in the attempt.

My gym routine unexpectedly caused me to consume more books this year than, well, any year since university, probably. I got through the audiobooks of Children of Time, Ruin & Memory; Dogs of War, Bear Head and Bee Speaker; Project Hail Mary; the basically perfect Piranesi; and about a third of Revelation Space so far.

I realise most people easily devour a novel in a week or two but for me 8⅓ books per year constitutes a breakneck pace. Does listening even count as reading? Maybe not, but it’s the best I can do right now, and it’s definitely better than (as seen in previous years) nothing.

Believe it or not, I make an effort to be positive in my weeknotes where possible because I realise nobody wants to hear someone only complaining week after week, but since yearnotes are so infrequent, this might be an acceptable opportunity for station identification:

If you care so little about writing or programming that you’d rather get an LLM to do it for you, you’re absolutely entitled to do that. In return, please understand that I don’t want to read those words, review that code or, ideally, ever interact with you in any way.

It’s been ten years since I moved into my current flat. Apart from the gutters and the beeping it’s served me well so I’m not in a hurry to leave it, especially now that it’s accidentally convenient for getting to the office.

Although I don’t get to say much about work, you don’t need to be paying close attention to realise I haven’t been enjoying it.

I feel a bit ashamed about this, but fundamentally I’m struggling with having a significantly more junior position than in the previous twenty years of my career. It didn’t bother me in principle when I joined — it seemed like a fun challenge and a worthwhile tradeoff at the time — but increasingly it’s making my job very difficult in practice regardless of whether my ego is fine with it.

I care so much about using my skills and experience to make things better but I’m finding it close to impossible to do that when I have no real authority and am constantly being ignored, undermined and disrespected as a result. It’s not something I’ve had to deal with before and I lack the muscle memory to anticipate or respond to it. So I struggle to feel like I’m making the kind of progress I expect of myself, and that makes it hard to maintain the positivity and optimism required for effective technical leadership.

It’s possible the situation will improve next year so for now I’m resolved to grit my teeth and hang in there for the sake of the long game. We’ll see who rusts first.

Anyway, it’s fine, we made it, well done. Good luck to all of us in 2026.